Dishonored preview – might and magic

From one of the creators of Deus Ex and the publishers of Skyrim and Fallout, comes a game that aims to be the new thinking manâs first person shooter.

Dishonored â aiming high

Any game with the sort of pedigree that Dishonored has is bound to get a certain amount of coverage, but so far the game is most famous for the alleged outburst of one of its designers. Apparently French developer Arkane didn’t say that first person shooters like Call Of Duty have âmade gamers stupid â, that was just a dodgy translation.

But whatever was said Dishonored certainly seems committed to having the opposite effect on both gamers and the genre in general.

We didnât gather much of the story in the demo we saw, but when the game was first announced a few weeks ago it was revealed to take place in an alternative Victorian style world where both magic and steampunk style technology exists.

Your main character was once bodyguard to the Empress, but has been framed for her murder and now seeks revenge against those that really killed her. Thereâs also some sort of plague going on, with Arkane apparently having been influenced by the Great Plague of London in terms of both setting and plot elements. This specific mission only hinted at the wider story though, as you set out to assassinate a crocked lawyer profiting from plague victims.

Much of what we saw in the hands-off demo went unexplained, including why you started the mission by emerging from a sewer. Whether this is your haunt for the whole game weâre not sure (itâs also where you escape to at the end of the mission) but stepping out into the light youâre immediately struck by the gameâs unique setting â which in this case has a peculiar looking ship steaming by with the carcass of a giant, but apparently not terrestrial, whale hoisted above it.

Up on the docks a few guards can be spied (literally if you youse your pocket telescope) milling about but these prove easy prey for your stealth attacks. A more serious problem is something called a Wall of Light: an energy field that disintegrates anything that passes through it â including the omnipresent rats of the city.

Guards can pass through the wall and you can reprogram it if you have the blueprints, but your character doesnât at the start of the level – so instead you trace back the power cable and simply sabotage it from there. The second this happens a horde of rats immediately rush through the now open gateway, which at first is greeted with amused laughter by the audience. But when they then begin to bloodily devour a corpse lying in the street it suddenly seems less funny.

Weâre told that rats play an important role throughout the game, although itâs not obvious how until later in the demo. For now you break up what appears to be a gang of three men trying to assault a woman, who sensibly runs away as soon as the fight starts â the third gang member also runs once his two allies are taken down, although he doesnât get far.

Although there is no morality system as such, your actions â whether defeating potential rapists or killing policeman â push the city towards either order or chaos, which may or may not aid individual missions and your wider goals.

Combat appears to have three main threads: melee battles, primarily swords; guns, which look antique but function very similarly to more modern weapons; and magic, which can be selected from an onscreen wheel that pauses the action.

For just getting around the two most useful spells appear to be a speed boost and a high jump, which help you clamber up and around the cityâs buildings. Another Wall of Light is the next immediate problem, but this time you manage to find the blueprints and youâre able to reverse its setting, to kill guards and let everyone else â including you – through.

From here you can see the huge fortress-like home of the lawyer, which at first appears completely impenetrable. Apparently there are five different ways to infiltrate it though, with the one weâre showing surely one of the most convoluted.

It involves possessing a rat and then using it to enter an adjoining building and scurrying past a maid and various guards. Once out of sight youâre then able to transform back into your human form and you begin creeping around the house in a manner very similar to Thief and other stealth adventures.

Although Arkane are French, and best known for PC games such as Arx Fatalis and Dark Messiah Of Might And Magic, theyâre this time aided by Harvey Smith â who worked on the original Deus Ex. Dishonored has strong influences from both it and contemporaries such as System Shock 2 and Thief: The Dark Project. As the demoâs player stalks around behind guards he doesnât even bother killing them, he just pickpockets keys and coinage.

By keeping out of sight, including hiding in a fireplace, heâs able to make it all the way to the lawyerâs room, at which point he takes a more direct approach. Barging in he stops time, dispatches the guards, plucks bullets fired at you out of thin air and then turns everything back on so he can give the lawyer a taste of cold steel.

At this point the demo goes all action, as the remaining guards burst in and you jump out the window, reprogramming a giant turret to attack the guards instead of intruders. Escaping through the streets another new power is also demonstrated: conjuring up a horde of rats which manage to strip a trio of guards to the bone in seconds.

You donât have it all your own way though and the mad dash to the sewers is almost foiled by some bizarre looking policemen on what is essentially giant stilts. These bizarre enemies (seen in the screenshot above) are difficult to take down due to their height but are eventually overcome and the demo finally comes to a close.

There are still many questions to answer, particularly whether any of these complicated solutions will be obvious to the average player (or reviewer), but the game clearly has high ambitions and at least you can be sure it isnât a Call Of Duty clone.